To avoid the eyes of the handful of people milling about the open plaza, Rhun followed Bernard into the shadowy refuge of Bernini’s colonnade that bordered the piazza’s edges. The massive Tuscan columns, four deep, should keep their preternaturally swift passage hidden. Bernard joined a contingent of other Sanguinists who waited in the shadows for the cardinal. As a group, they rushed along the sweep of the colonnade toward the entrance to the Holy City.
Once they reached the waist-high fence that divided the Vatican city-state from Rome proper, Rhun’s eyes scanned the nearest rooftops. He remembered the shared vision he had with Elisabeta, of her leaping from rooftop to rooftop.
The furious honk of a car horn drew his eyes below, to the cobblestone street that led here.
Fifty yards away, the small shape of a woman fled down the center of Via della Conciliazione, limping on one leg. Though her hair was shorter, he had no trouble recognizing Elisabeta. A white car swerved to miss her.
She paid it no mind, intent on reaching St. Peter’s Square.
Trailing behind her, a dozen strigoi loped and sprinted.
He longed to burst from the colonnade and run to her, but Bernard put a steadying hand on his arm.
“Stay,” the cardinal warned, as if reading his thoughts. “Humans are on that street and in those houses. They will see the battle, and they will know. We have millennia of secrecy to protect. Let the fight come to us.”
As Rhun watched, he recognized the pain in Elisabeta’s thinned lips, her fearful glances behind. He remembered the same panic when looking through her eyes.
She is not leading this pack—she’s fleeing them.
Despite all she had done to him, to the innocents of the city, a reflexive surge to protect her fired inside him. Bernard’s fingers tightened on his shoulder, perhaps feeling him lean forward, ready to dash to her defense.
Elisabeta finally reached the end of the street. The other strigoi were almost upon her. Not slowing, she hurdled the low fence that marked the boundary of Vatican City and landed in a half crouch, facing the snarling pack.
She sneered, exposing her fangs, and taunted them. “Cross to me if you dare.”
The pack pulled hard to a stop beyond the fencerow. A few took a cautious step closer, then away again, sensing the debilitating holiness of the hallowed ground on this side. They wanted her, but would they dare enter Vatican City to get her?
Holy ground was not all they had to fear here.
The Sanguinist force waited to either side of Rhun and Bernard, as still as statues among the columns. If the strigoi came into the city, the beasts would be pulled into this shadowy forest of stone and slaughtered.
Elisabeta retreated from the fencerow—but she put too much weight on her hurt leg, and her ankle finally gave out fully, dropping her to the pavement.
The sign of weakness was too much for the strigoi to resist. Like lions descending upon a wounded gazelle, the pack surged forward.
Rhun ripped out of Bernard’s grip and burst into the open. He flew toward Elisabeta, as much a creature of instinct as the strigoi. He reached her at the same time that the pack leader, a huge figure with ropy muscles and blue-black tattoos, bounded the fence and landed on the countess’s far side, baring his teeth.
More strigoi followed his example, flowing over the fence.
Rhun grabbed her by the arm and retreated toward the colonnade, dragging her, hoping to lure the pack into the stone forest.
The leader barked an order and an overzealous beast rushed forward.
Heaving with one arm, Rhun threw Elisabeta like a rag doll into the colonnade and slashed out with his karambit. The silver blade cut through the air—then through flesh. The feral youngster fell back, clutching his throat as blood and breath bubbled out of his severed neck.
Other strigoi surged forward as Rhun retreated—only to be met at the edge of the colonnade by Bernard and the other Sanguinists.
A brief battle raged among the columns. But with the pack caught by surprise and weakened by holy ground, it was a slaughter. A few broke away, leaping the fence and scattering like vermin into the streets, fleeing both the fight and the sun.
Rhun found himself confronting the hulking leader. Upon his bared chest, a Hieronymus Bosch painting had been tattooed, a hellish landscape of death and punishment. It came to life as his muscles rippled, lifting his heavy blade.
Rhun’s blade looked contemptibly small compared to that length of steel.
As if knowing this, spite polished the other’s dark eyes to a wicked gleam. He sprang at Rhun, hacking that sword downward at his head, ready to cleave him in two.
But holiness slowed the strigoi’s attack, allowing time for Rhun to duck inside the other’s guard. He turned the hook of his karambit up and sliced into the other’s belly. Ripping high, he tore that grotesque canvas in half and kicked the body away.
The gutted bulk toppled to the edge of the columns, one arm flinging out into the light—into sunlight. The limb burst into flame. Another Sanguinist helped Rhun yank the body back into the shadows and stanched the flames before the fire drew unwanted attention.
A few faces turned toward the shadows, but most remained oblivious of the swift and deadly battle within the colonnade. As Rhun stared at the sunlight brightening the plaza, fear rang through him.
Elisabeta . . .
He turned to find Bernard looming over her huddled form, her face to the ground. She surely felt the blaze of the new day, sensed its burn. For now, her only safety lay within the shadowy shelter of the colonnade. To step beyond it would be her death.
Bernard grabbed her by the shoulder, looking ready to cast her out into the square, to face the judgment of a new day. Sanguinists crowded around him, reeking of wine and incense. None would stop the cardinal if he chose to slay her. She had led strigoi to the holiest city in Europe.
Bernard buried a hand in her short hair, yanked her head back, rested his blade against her soft white throat.
“No!” Rhun called out, rushing forward, shoving through the others.
But it was not his shout that halted the cardinal’s blade.
7:52 A.M.
Shock froze Bernard in place—along with utter disbelief.
He stared at the woman’s face as if she were a ghost.
It could not be her.
It must be a trick of light and shadow, his mind indulging in fantasy, a strigoi with an uncanny likeness. Still, he recognized the silver eyes, the raven color of her hair, even the indignant, haughty expression as his blade rested against her soft throat, as if she dared him to take her life.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsed.
But she had perished centuries ago. Bernard had seen her imprisoned in her castle. He had even visited her there once, pitied her, the learned noblewoman brought low by Rhun’s base desires.
But Bernard bore as much guilt for that crime. Centuries ago, he had put the woman on this cruel path when he set the countess and Rhun together, when he tried to force his will upon divine prophecy. Afterward, Bernard had begged to be the one to take her life, to spare Rhun of such a deed, knowing how much he had loved her, how far he had fallen for her. But the pope had deemed it part of Rhun’s penance to end her unnatural life, to slay the monster that he had created.
Bernard had worried when Rhun returned from Hungary. Rhun had claimed the deed was done, that the countess was gone from this world. Bernard had taken it to mean she was dead, not put away like a doll in a drawer. At the time, as additional penance, Rhun had starved himself for years, mortified himself for decades, shutting himself off from the mortal world.
But plainly Rhun had not killed her.
What have you done, my son? What sin have you committed yet again in the name of love?
As horror faded, another realization took root, one full of promise.
By Rhun sparing her, the Bathory line was not dead—as Bernard had despaired these past months. He pondered what that implied.
Could
this be a sign from God?
Had God’s will acted through Rhun to preserve the countess for this new task?
For the first time since the Blood Gospel had delivered its message and cast doubt on Dr. Erin Granger’s role as the Woman of Learning, hope surged through Bernard.
Countess Bathory might yet save them all.
Bernard stared at her beautiful face in wonder, still disbelieving this miracle, this sudden turn of good fortune. He gripped her hair tighter, refusing to lose this one hope.
She could not be allowed to escape.
Rhun appeared at his side, listing a bit on his feet, plainly succumbing to his weakened state again. Even this brief battle had quickly stanched whatever fire the blood had stoked inside him.
Still . . .
“Restrain him,” Bernard ordered the others, fearing what Rhun might do. At this moment, he did not know his friend’s heart. Would he kill her, save her, or try to run off with her in shame?
I do not know.
All he knew for sure was that he had to protect this wicked woman with every force he could marshal.
He needed her.
The world needed her.
The countess must have read that certainty in his eyes. Her perfect lips curved into a smile, both cunning and mean.
God help us, if I’m wrong.
PART II
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,
and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
—Revelation 16:6
12
December 19, 10:11 A.M. CET
Rome, Italy
Erin shared the backseat of the red Fiat with Jordan. Christian sat up front with the driver. The Sanguinist had his head out the open window, speaking to a Swiss guard in a midnight-blue uniform and cap. The young man carried an assault rifle over one shoulder, guarding St. Anne’s Gate, one of the side entrances into Vatican City.
Normally the guards here weren’t overtly armed.
So why the heightened security?
The guard nodded, stepped back, and waved their car through.
Christian whispered to the driver, and they set off into the Holy City, passing under the verdigris-green iron archway. Once they were moving again, Christian had returned his phone to his ear, where it had been glued ever since their chartered plane had landed at Rome’s smaller Ciampino Airport. Their driver had been waiting for them in this nondescript Fiat and whisked them in minutes to the gates of Vatican City.
Jordan held Erin’s hand in the backseat, staring out as the car slipped past the Vatican bank and post office and circled behind the bulk of St. Peter’s Basilica.
She studied the ancient buildings, imagining the secrets hidden behind their bright stucco facades. As an archaeologist, she uncovered truth layer by layer, but her discovery of the existence of strigoi and Sanguinists had taught her that history had layers even deeper than any she had thought existed.
But one question remained foremost in her mind.
Jordan expressed it. “Where is Christian taking us?”
She was just as curious. She had thought they would be heading straight to the papal apartments to meet with Cardinal Bernard in his offices, but instead their car headed farther out into the grounds behind the basilica.
Erin leaned forward, interrupting Christian on the phone. She was too tired to be polite and irritated by all the subterfuge they’d followed to come here.
“Where are we going?” she asked, touching the Sanguinist’s shoulder.
“We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?” she pressed.
Christian pointed his phone ahead.
Erin ducked lower to study their approach toward a building of white Italian marble with a red-tiled roof. A set of train tracks behind it revealed the structure’s purpose.
It was Stazione Vaticano, the one-and-only train station on the Vatican railway line. It had been built during the reign of Pope Pius XI in the early 1930s. Today it was mostly used to import freight, though the last few popes had taken occasional ceremonial trips from here aboard a special papal train.
Erin saw that same train parked on those tracks now.
Three forest-green cars were lined up behind a black old-fashioned engine that puffed out steam. At another time, she would have been thrilled at the sight, but right now she had but one overriding concern: the fate of Rhun. During the trip here, no other visions had come, and she feared what that meant for Rhun.
The Fiat drove straight to the platform and stopped. Christian popped out his door, drawing Jordan and Erin with him. With his phone back at his ear, Christian led them up the platform. The Sanguinist had changed out of his tattered dress uniform and into a priest’s shirt and black jeans. The outfit suited him better.
Upon reaching the train, he lowered his phone and pointed to the middle car with a mischievous grin. “All aboard!”
Erin glanced back toward the dome of the basilica. “I don’t understand. Are we leaving already? What about Rhun?”
The slender Sanguinist shrugged. “At this point, I know as much as you do. The cardinal asked that I bring you both here and board the train. It’s scheduled to be under way as soon as we are on board.”
Jordan put his warm palm against her lower back. She leaned back into it, glad for the touch of the familiar, the understandable. “What else did you expect from Bernard?” he said. “If you look up need to know in the dictionary, you’d find his smiling face there. The guy likes his secrets.”
And secrets got people killed.
Erin fingered the small marble of amber in the pocket of her jeans, picturing Amy’s hesitant smile under a desert sun.
“For now,” Jordan said, “we might as well do what the cardinal asks. We can always come back if we don’t like what he tells us.”
She nodded. Jordan could always be counted on to point to the most practical way forward. She kissed his cheek, his stubble rough under her lips, adding another soft kiss to his lips.
Christian stepped to the door and pulled it open. “To avoid undue attention, the Vatican put out a cover story that the train is being shifted to a maintenance yard outside Rome. But the sooner we’re moving, the happier I’ll be.”
With little other choice, Erin climbed the metal steps, followed by Jordan. She stepped into a sumptuous dining car. Golden velvet curtains had been tied back next to each window, and the compartment practically glowed in the morning sunshine—from the buttery yellow ceiling to the rich oak joinery. The air smelled of lemon polish and old wood.
Jordan whistled. “Looks like the pope knows how to travel. The only thing that would make this picture better would be a steaming pot of coffee on one of those tables.”
“I second that,” Erin said.
“Have a seat,” Christian said, passing by them and waving to a table that had been set. “I’ll see about making your wishes come true.”
As he headed toward the car in front, Erin found a spot bathed in sunlight and sat, enjoying the warmth after the rush across the cold city. She stroked the white linen tablecloth with one finger. Two places were set with silver flatware and fine china decorated with the papal seal.
Jordan smoothed his dress blue uniform, doing his best to look presentable as he sat next to her. Still, she caught the hard glint to his eyes as he peered out the windows, constantly on the watch for any danger, though trying not to show it.
Finally, he settled down. “Hope the food here is better than at that hippie place Christian took us to in San Fran. Vegan food? Really? I’m a meat-and-potatoes sort of guy. And in my particular case, I lean more toward the meat side of that equation.”
“This is Italy. Something tells me you might get lucky with the food.”
“Indeed you shall!” a new voice called behind them, coming from the door to the first car.
Startled, Jordan came close to bursting out of his seat and swinging around, but even he recognized the slight German accent to those few w
ords.
“Brother Leopold!” Erin exclaimed, delighted to see the monk, along with the tray he carried, holding a coffee service.
She hadn’t seen the German monk since the day he had saved her life. He looked the same—with his wire-rimmed spectacles, simple brown habit, and boyish grin.
“Never fear, breakfast will be served in a moment.” Leopold lifted the tray. “But first, Christian mentioned that you were both desperately in need of a jolt of caffeine after your long journey.”
“If you define jolt as a full pot of coffee, you are correct.” Jordan smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Leopold.”
“Likewise.”
The monk bustled over and filled their china cups with a steaming dark roast blend. The train had begun to slowly move, the timbre of the engines stoking higher.
Christian appeared again and took the seat opposite Erin, staring pointedly at the steaming cup in her hands.
Familiar with his routine, she handed him the white china cup. He brought it to his nose, closed his eyes, and sniffed deeply at the curl of steam. An expression of contentment crossed his face.
“Thank you,” he said and handed the cup back to her.
As a young Sanguinist, he wasn’t as far removed from simple human pleasures, like coffee. She liked that.
“Any news?” Jordan asked him. “Like where we’re going?”
“I was told that once we’re outside of Rome, we’ll learn more. Meantime, I say we savor the calm.”
“As in, before the storm?” Erin asked.
Christian chuckled. “Most probably.”
Jordan seemed content enough with that answer. During the trip here, he and Christian had become fast friends, unusually so considering Jordan’s distaste and distrust for the Sanguinists after Rhun had bitten her.
As the line of cars inched away from the station, the train headed toward a set of steel doors that blocked the tracks a few hundred yards ahead, set into the massive walls that surrounded the Holy City. The gateway sported rivets and thick doornails and looked as if it were meant to guard a medieval castle.
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